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On the 16th anniversary of the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles, the French Constitutional Council ruled that a new law banning the video recording of violence by ordinary citizens was constitutional. The law does not prevent the press from making such recordings.

The intent behind the law was to reign-in delinquents who commit acts of violence while a friend records them for later amusement value, but civil liberties groups argue that the law was written deliberately vaguely so as to ensnare citizens unrelated to the attacker as well. They believe the intent is to keep videos of police abuse from being made.

Last week, president Bush signed an Executive Order instructing all federal agencies to pass all their regulations and "guidance documents" through an appointee of the administration for approval.

This move coincides with the president re-nomination of Susan E Dudley to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Ms Dudley has argued in the past that government intervention is not necessary "in the absence of a specific market failure."

The Executive Order provides instruction to agencies along the same lines as Ms Dudley's ideology. Essentially, what she is arguing for is no regulations unless the private sector has failed to address the issue.

This Executive Order runs contrary to the legislative process as Congress often enacts legislation calling for regulation which leaves the specific requirements and implementation up to the bureaucrats that run the agency. It seems likely that Congress will be forced to write more specific details into legislation when regulation is desired. In some ways, that will make the legislation harder to pass as people become concerned about the slow pace at which rules written into law could be adjusted to address market issues.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, completed its 100 Hours agenda with the passage of a bill to end tax breaks and subsidies given to the oil industry.

The bill reclaims $14 billion in lost revenue over the next 5 years, if it is ultimately signed into law. The bill passed on a vote of 264 to 163 with, again, many Republicans voting with the Democrats. That vote, however, is short of a veto-proof majority. The Bush Administration has voiced displeasure with the measure but has not threatened to veto it.

Part of the bill will require the administration to renegotiate leases for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico. When Congress authorized the leases during the 90s, they directed that royalties be paid if the price of oil went over $34 a barrel. The Clinton Administration failed to put such a requirement into the leases. When the price of oil crossed that threshold during the Bush Administration, they decided they were powerless to fix the problem. This bill effectively voids the leases.

The open question is whether the oil-friendly administration will veto the bill, ignore it with a signing statement, or actually follow it.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives knocked off another of the 100 hours legislation items: a 50% cut in the interest rate on student loans.

The legislation passed by an astounding 356 to 71 margin with many, many Republicans crossing over to vote with the Democrats.

One issue in the legislation however is that the reduction is only for five years. The reason it is temporary is due to another Democratic commitment to offset spending increases, which this would be, with cuts elsewhere. To make the reduction permanent would be more expensive than the Democrats wish to see cut in other places.

It is expected that the legislation will be tied up in the Senate, however, as Senator Ted Kennedy is planning to introduce the legislation as part of a much broader education package that is unlikely to garner such broad support.

This past week, the house passed two pieces of legislation in the face of vetoes promised by president George W Bush.

The first bill, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, is geared toward expanding federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The bill fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto with 253-174 tally that included 37 Republicans voting for it and 16 Democrats voting against it.

It is unclear at this time when the bill will be considered in the Senate. The bill is favored by the majority of Americans so Senate Republicans may attempt to prevent the bill from being voted on at all to save the president from having to veto the bill.

The second bill, designated to allow the Federal Government to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies, passed on a 255-170 vote with 24 Republicans joining a united Democratic caucus. This bill as well is facing a certain presidential veto.

A previously reported, the Republican argument basically boils down to the law not having any effect so why pass it. However, the bill is really a repeal of a specific clause in Medicare Part D that prohibits the government from negotiating. This raises an interesting question. If such negotiations will have no effect, why work so hard to resist them?

Just hours before president Bush's address to the nation on Iraq, the House of Representatives delivered on another of Nancy Pelosi's 100 Hours initiatives. The bill easily passed on veto-proof 315-116 vote that included 82 republicans voting along with the democratic majority.

The minimum wage, under this bill, would go from $5.15 to $7.25 over the next two years. If the bill becomes law, the minimum wage hike will go as follows:

Yesterday evening, the House of Representatives delivered on one of its 100 hours proposals and passed a bill to implement much of the remaining 9/11 commission recommendations. The bill passed with a veto-proof 299-128 majority including 68 Republicans.

It remains unclear as to what the bill's chances are in the Senate. With the Senate split 50-49, with one democrat hospitalized, sixteen Republican Senators would have to vote along with the Democrats to pass the bill with a veto proof majority. 10 would have to side with the democrats just to see the bill come up for a vote at all.

When the 110th Congress begins its session today, incoming speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has an agenda for the first 100 hours of the session. Over the next two weeks, a broad range of issues of importance to the majority of Americans will be acted upon. Below is a summary, with links to more in-depth analysis from earlier apathy.net articles.

Draining The Swamp - a catch phrase for an agenda to improve congressional ethics. Highlights include: a ban on privately funded travel, loss of floor access to past members who are now lobbyists, 24 hours waiting period on all bills and 3 days for bills containing earmarks or limited tax benefits.

Minimum Wage Increase - Congress will seek to raise the minimum wage to $7.25. Analysis shows that this should increase the GDP and help save social security.

The 9/11 Commission - Pelosi claims that Congress will implement "all the recommendations" of the 9/11 commission. The truth here is that most things have been implemented except the calls for more direct oversight by Congress. It's no surprise Pelosi wants to implement that.

Medicaid Prescription Drug Program - as it stands now, the federal government is prohibited from negotiating with drug companies to get lower prices for drugs available through this program. Congress will seek to lift that restriction. Whether or not such negotiations will secure lower prices than the current system is a matter of much debate.

Student Loan Rates - Congress will seek to cut student loan rates in half (from 6.8% to 3.4% for Stafford loans.) The impact of such a change can be far reaching as college education can be a factor in unemployment, entitlement use and likelihood to vote.

Big Oil - Congress will seek to reverse one of the biggest blunders of the Clinton Administration by compelling Oil companies to pay mandated royalties on off-shore drilling revenue. The law allowing the drilling required the government to secure royalty agreements for the leases, but Clinton Administration ineptly left that requirement out of the leases. The blunder, if not fixed, will cost tax payers over 10 billion in revenue over the next 5 years.

Social Security - The administration's bluster about the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund is a boondoggle to justify their desire to see the money put into the stock market to jack the value of wealthy portfolios. Congress is promising to head off any efforts toward privatization on part of the administration.

As part of Nancy Pelosi's legislative agenda for the 110th Congress, her "100 hours" program, she has committed to opposing any attempts to privatize social security.

To understand why this is an issue, we need to look at what has come before. president Bush has been beating the conservative drum citing false claims of impending doom vis-Ã -vis the social security program. His typically republican solution: take it private.

The dream of privatizing Social Security is a dream for the wealthy for two reasons: First, they fear an eventual needs assessment that may prevent them from collecting their own contributions; and, second, they want to see the funds that go into the Social Security trust fund go into the stock market instead.

On its face, the idea of not being able to collect your contributions because you're too wealthy sound disturbing. After all, it was your money. However, only wage earners contribute to social security. That's an important thing to keep in mind. Generally speaking, people do not become wealthy by working for someone else. The people fronting the argument of losing their contributions are simply pandering to the working class dream (work hard, save money, retire wealthy). It is the same sort of reasoning that gets people worked up about the estate tax. The vast majority of people subject to the estate tax at the time of their death will have been born rich in the first place. But, people want to believe they can achieve wealth and don't want it taken away.

One of the hottest issues contained on incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi's 100 Hours platform is the Oil Industry.

The American people are getting squeezed at the gas pump while the oil industry makes headlines for record profits.

During the lame-duck congress, House democrats fired a warning shot across the bow of the oil industry with a narrowly defeated bill that would have closed a legal loophole that is keeping the oil industry from paying a projected $10 billion over the next decade. That bill went down 205-207 in the republican controlled congress.

The same legislation is expected to be introduced as part of the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress later this week where it is expected to pass easily.

The problem actually dates back to the Clinton Administration which negotiated about a thousand leases for oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies, under the legislation that allows the drilling, are supposed to be paying royalties on revenue from those fields if oil goes over $34 a barrel (which it has been for like four years). The problem is that the Clinton Administration failed to include any such clause in the leases. The proposed legislation seeks to force the renegotiation of those leases to see the clauses put in place. It is estimated that the industry has already avoided paying billions of dollars in royalties due to the legal loophole.

As part of incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi's 100 hour platform for the beginning of the 110th Congress, she is proposing to cut the interest rate on, presumably federal, Student Loans by half.

A 50% reduction would take Stafford loans down to 3.4% from 6.8% and PLUS loans down to 4.25% from 8.5%.

I'm not surprised this is being proposed. Those rates, to me, seem quite high. At those levels, a home-equity loan would be cheaper by comparison. Note: I don't think home owners can apply for these loans, but you get the idea.

To me, this seems like a no-brainer, especially when you consider the decline of American prowess in education. Trickle-down economics might not work, but trickle-down is the only way education can work. We need people to go through school, become better educated and pass that knowledge on to the next generation if the crisis of education in this country is going to be reversed.

Consider some of these points from the Bill Summary for H.R. 5150, the Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act:

As we wait for the opening of the 110th Congress on January 4th, here is another of Nancy Pelosi's "100 Hours" Proposals: Allow Medicaid to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.

It sounds almost ridiculous, doesn't it. The fact that Medicaid isn't permitted to negotiate prices as part of the plan borders on criminal waste. That said, let's take a closer look.

Shortly after the legislation that created the drug program passed, Senator Frist, the then Majority Leader, asked the Congressional Budget Office to examine what the price effects would be if the section that prohibits the governments direct involvement in the negotiations were removed. The C.B.O. estimated that the effects would be "negligible":

We estimate that striking that provision would have a negligible effect on federal spending because CBO estimates that substantial savings will be obtained by the private plans and that the Secretary would not be able to negotiate prices that further reduce federal spending to a significant degree. Because they will be at substantial financial risk, private plans will have strong incentives to negotiate price discounts, both to control their own costs in providing the drug benefit and to attract enrollees with low premiums and cost-sharing requirements.

Bush has, yet again, issued a signing statement that directly contradicts sections of the law being signed. With the Democrats coming into control of congress, will this practice finally precipitate a constitutional crisis.

The signing statements relate to a law just passed by Congress that allows for the sharing of civilian nuclear technology with India -- something the U.S. hasn't done for 30 years.

In the law, Congress put in a number of requests that certain safeguards and protocols be followed. One such stipulation asked the president to report to congress annually as to whether India is cooperating with efforts to curtain Iran's nuclear ambitions. Bush's signing statement stipulates that his signing the law "does not constitute my adoption of the statements of policy (in the law) as U.S. foreign policy."

Another stipulation, which was touted as an important safeguard that makes the adoption of the law a formality of little significance, is the intention that transfers of materials to India be within the guidelines of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. Bush's statement declares such requirements in the law to be merely "advisory."

Incoming Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has indicated a desire to implement 'all' recommendations of the 9/11 Commission during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress. This is perhaps the most sweeping and overreaching commitment made in her platform of 100 hours initiatives.

I describe it as overreaching because many of the recommendations are outside the Congress' constitutional authority to implement. The recommendations of the commission are detailed in sections 12 and 13 of their report (link below.) Section 12 is all about foreign policy, and is, therefore, something Congress can do little about.

So, that said, let's assume she was talking about Section 13 and let's see what she can commit to there. Here are the specific bullet points of contained in Section 13.

unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide with a National Counterterrorism Center;

unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Director;

unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries;

unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability; and

Another part of Nancy Pelosi's promised first 100 hours of the 110th Congress is a promise to pass an increase in the minimum wage.

As I've previously mentioned on this site, I think this is overdue and perhaps should be indexed so as to avoid this fight in the future; but, in any case, the proposed legislation is likely to call for an increase to $7.25/hour.

I do not wish to rehash arguments put forth in my previous article on the topic (link below), except to point out that without an increase by 2008, anyone working full time at minimum wage will be below the poverty line.

As part of this series on the first 100 hours, I want to touch on another aspect of raising the minimum wage: GDP, Taxes and Social Security.

In states where the state minimum wage is higher than the current $5.15 federal minimum, the GDP per working-age capita is $73,369 compared to $62,671 for states at the minimum. In states with a minimum of $7.00 or higher, the GDP per working-age capita rises to $78,950.